Monthly Archives: February 2015

Audio Book Recording & Production, New Orleans VoiceOvers

50 Shades Of Grey … Matter, from Airlift Productions

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Airlift Productions Proprietor Micheal Ziants, in a photo shoot for Q-93/WQUE-FM back in the day, to promote that afternoon M&M Mike McCann Show for New Orleans

As Mardi Gras rumbles through the streets of NOLA yet again (bands, beads & boobs), and just ahead of the opening of “50 Shades of Grey” at a cineplex near you … a few thoughts from Airlift.

It’s kind of funny the way life works sometimes. The Chinese call it ‘wu wei’ …. living with the give and take, the flow of life,  but the biggest industrial VoiceOver job I got all last year centered around an unbelievable set of circumstances.

The CEO of this major Chicago-based supply house needed VoiceOver work recorded for a huge upcoming convention in Dallas. As fate would have it, the CEO was female, and her request to the video producer was, “Have Micheal read it like he did ‘The Highwayman’ on his website.”

Now, the read in question came from an audio book on CD that I had finished recording in the mid-1990s, “Soft Words, Warm Nights“, and was a far cry from anything I’d been cast to record at that point. Not even close.

Passionate. Dramatic. Cinematic. As you may recall from high school or collegiate English classes, this epic poem tells the tale of highway robbery, torrid passion, star-crossed lovers, suicide & murder!

Certainly not what one would call ‘commercial fare’.

Yet across the decades, this recording of ‘The Highwayman’ was the clincher.  This was the approach, the mic technique, the raw emotion that this woman – the corporate decision maker – based her final decision on.

All that being said, here comes another Airlift Mike stretch.

In her sizzling, poker-hot, best-seller “50 Shades of Grey”, E. L. James set fire to the smoldering libidos of women all across the planet.

And now, just ahead of it’s big box office release, Airlift Productions presents ’50 Shades of Grey ~ the Ziants way’ – no reverb, no special effects, no music. Naked. Raw. Real. Sensual. Oh, and fun!

Plug-in the headphones (no kids allowed) and give a LISTEN to Airlift’s audio book audition track here …

***** Micheal Ziants reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’ *****

To the uninitiated who’ve never heard an audio book, yes, the narrator/reader performs all the parts.  It’s all about treating the microphone not as a cold piece of metal … but as a warm, human ear. Making sterile technology & internet downloads all warm … and fuzzy.

It has been said that the most important sexual organ is between the ears, not the legs … the human brain, the gray matter.  So, let’s tickle it a bit.

Whether this read influences the next corporate narration VoiceOver job or not is purely an academic question at this point … but for now, let’s just consider this a bedtime story for the 21st century woman.

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Airlift Productions’ Micheal Ziants putting in another day at the office in 2015. “Ah, can I really say THAT on the microphone?”

Airlift Productions Recording Studio ~ Telling America’s Great Stories from New Orleans since 1984!

Airlift Music Sessions, New Orleans VoiceOvers

“Anchors Away” – Airlift Mike Reflects On Decades of Recording Norman Robinson

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Norman Robinson sat in the Anchor chair at WDSU-TV, New Orleans for over twenty years … and still today records his euphonium and VoiceOvers at Airlift Productions.

I first met Norman Robinson in 1991 at the Airlift Productions studios on Iberville Street. He was fresh off the White House beat for the CBS Network  and was the newly ordained nightly news anchor at WDSU-TV here in New Orleans.

Along with John Lee, the founder of the I Can Learn educational programs, he showed up at the studios to record some promotional VoiceOver tracks to help attract some attention to this new and innovative method of teaching.

I was thinking about our first meeting and that first session together as Norman arrived at the Airlift studios this past Friday, February 6th, 2015 to record with me…  yet again.

Let’s see, so simple math would indicate that our relationship and friendship now spans nearly a quarter of a century!

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(L-R) Brian Landry, Norman Robinson, Rich Lenz & Airlift’s Micheal Ziants ~ in the Airlift Productions ‘Green Room’, along with a plaque commemorating four years of Children’s Miracle Network Telethon Theme Songs for our Children’s Hospital in New Orleans

In addition to his outstanding contributions every night for over two decades in the anchor chair at WDSU, Norman is quite the musician as well. While foreign to many, the euphonium (sort of a hybrid cross between a french horn and a tuba) is Norm’s instrument of choice.

He played it in the marine band while in the service, and still does today in various orchestras and ensembles around the Crescent City – and for the Children’s Hospital NOLA at Airlift Productions.

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Norman Robinson at the euphonium, along with Brian Landry, the “Soul Men”, laying-down tracks for the 2014 Telethon at Airlift Productions

But it’s more than his chops at the euphonium or at the anchor desk that make Norman so special. It’s his spirit! Charm. Charisma. Magnetism. Gravitas. Norman didn’t just sit in the anchor chair. He inhabited it. He owned it.

In a day and time where even NBC Network News & Brian Williams’ authority and credibility have now come into question, the city of New Orleans always had its fingers on the pulse of what was going on … and believed in and trusted Norman Robinson.

It was that trust, that gravitas, that authoritative weight that brought Norman back into the Airlift Productions Studios this past week to record VoiceOver for a very special project.  Just give a listen to a taste of what went down Friday here ….

*** Norman Robinson at the Airlift Productions microphones Friday, February 6th, 2015, talking unabashedly of the city he loves ***

If all Norman did was string words together in that marvelous booming baritone, to many, that would be more than enough, but it doesn’t stop there. His nightly news laughter and asides, and his boundless humanity and love of life on the yearly Children’s Telethons is what endeared him to so many.

Witness  this clip provided by his successor Scott Walker, from a cell phone video at our last telethon in June of 2014, as Norman invokes the spirit of James Brown ….

*** Norman performs to make the telephones ring and the pledges come in at the 2014 Children’s Miracle Network Telethon ***

As Norman and I wrapped-up our session this past week, we reflected on our many years working together. And I guess the most interesting part of our conversation was about what lies ahead for us … because we’re just getting warmed-up.

Because, you see, on that great Highway of Life, the most fascinating years, the really interesting ones …  are through the windshield – not the rear view mirror! 

For more, as they used to say in the ad world, “Watch this Space”.

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(L-R) Airlift’s Micheal Ziants, Norman Robinson, Heath Allen, Rich Lenz at the WDSU-TV Studios for the annual Children’s Miracle Network Telethon.

Airlift Productions Recording Studio ~ Audio Alchemy from NOLA

 

mystical micheal musings, Native American Sympathies

Timeless Cherokee Thought for 21st Century Man

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Airlift Productions NOLA Proprietor Micheal Ziants at age 25 in the woods of Pennsylvania, in a reflective picture taken by an old friend back in the day … with a vision from and for the Cherokee

 

Since the dawn of recorded time the world’s philosophers have disagreed on many things, but on this one point they are all in unison.
 
As a man Thinks … so he Is! 
 
What can any of us act on … but what we choose to think about? Thought creates reality. Thought, while invisible to man’s five senses … is the most powerful force in the universe.
 
As Emerson so eloquently phrased it, “The ancestor to every action … is a thought.”
 
Every building, every highway, every hit song, every book, everyTHING – including you & me – has at it’s root an invisible, imperceptible to the senses … THOUGHT!
 
According to the universal law of cause & effect, our thought is ‘father’ not only to our every deed, but to every condition we attract!
 
In the days before what we call ‘America’ was born, in fact in the days when all Europe was but a wilderness, the natives on these shores knew that.
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Thousands of years before the time of Abraham, before King David, before those we call the Christ, the Buddha, and Muhammad walked among us … the Cherokee taught their young this same weighty philosophical issue late at night before sleep around the campfires.
The Story of the Two Wolves.
Every moment of every day, select and choose your thoughts wisely … for from your thought springs your action, deed and virtue.  Which wolf wins? The one you feed!
Now, if you, the reader of these words – this ‘thought’ – are nodding your head in agreement as you read along, vow today to take action. Take control of your own mind. Do not allow yourself the ‘luxury’ of a negative, harmful thought.
After all, if you are not in charge of every morsel of food that passes your lips … and every thought that passes through your mind, I’d like to respectfully ask you – who is?
Feed the Right Wolf!
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With bountiful blessings, heartfelt prayers, and a fervent wish to IncreaseThePeace … from New Orleans, the new Jer-USA-lem, and Airlift Productions.  ~ Micheal

Airlift Productions ** A Catalyst for Positive Change from New Orleans since 1984